Marty & I woke around 3:30am to pounding rain, and violent wind. After several near window-breaking blasts to our bedroom windows, we grabbed our flashlights and headed closer to our "safe room," which is really the pantry under the stairs. The weather report warned of probable tornadoes in our area plus a lot of upper rotation. After the first blasts, it just settled into very heavy rain and wind. The storm traveled through at 65 miles per hour and wind gusts of 90 miles per hour. It was all over in less than an hour.
This is our back yard before.
This is the view after.
We lost the live oak tree that was in the back corner of our yard. Amazingly, it fell diagonally in the only space that could miss our house, our neighbor's house and our fences. We also lost another large oak on the other side of the house.
As we look in our little area of 3 streets, there are over a dozen other large trees down, neighbors with windows blown out and parts of their roofs gone. The surrounding neighborhoods are just as bad.
As the morning came and people wandered out of their homes to survey the damage, several went house to house to check on neighbors. We all agreed that we are ultimately and thoroughly thankful that no one was hurt and material damage really is minimal.
